Thread: Discus Set Up?
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Old 22-10-2009, 08:37 AM
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Rhiannan Rhiannan is offline
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Re: Discus Set Up?

I've also got discus, we have had them for a few years now.

I echo pretty much the same as what everyone else says.

Make sure you do plenty of reading up first of all and maybe join a discus forum such as the scottish discus (My OH is admin there ).
You will need a big tank, ideally a QT tank too. Will need either HMA or RO, or both as we use. We managed fine with just the HMA in our last house as the water was very good, but now we have a pricate water supply it is not so good so we use both.
We also have an external filter, very handy so you can maintain it with minimum disruption to the fish. That way you can add things like peat or crushed oyster shells to help alter the PH.

We keep our discus with some rummy nose tetras and cardinals, so it's a good idea to have dither fish but often people keep them on their own.

We don't have any decoration in our tank now! To start with we had bog wood and gravel etc, but since they need since regualr cleaning it is easiest to maintain a bare tank. Plus it stops any scrapes if they get a scare and dart about.

Feeding them generally has never been too much of a problem, we feed ours beefheard flake, garlic flake, sea weed, brine shimp etc. We have tried a number of different foods and the flakes are our preferred one.

Have you kept tropical fish before? I wouldn't reccomend discus as your first fish, but once you have some basic experience and have bought all the equipment (can be expensive) they are easy enough to keep.

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